Why “democratic socialism”?
Why “democratic socialism”?
Why not just “Marxism", “communism", or “socialism"? We democratic socialists, we, the forces of Marxist democracy, whatever we may label ourselves, are certainly all of these things. And not only must we not deny that we are these things- we must upfrontly and proudly own the simple fact that we are indeed the inheritors of the philosophy and cause of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
But we must also, in the most upfront and explicit way, identify our general revolutionary strategy and ethic. We must draw a clear line between ourselves and Leninism and the Leninist experiments, between ourselves and Bordigist “left communism", between ourselves and general Marxian Blanquism, and between ourselves and general support of non-supermajoritarian revolution. We must also draw a line between ourselves and left “anarchism".
We must, in direct opposition to invocation of Lenin, Mao, or Bordiga, Proudhon, Bakunin, or Kropotkin, invoke Bebel, Martov, or Debs, invoke the revolutionary Marxist social democracy of yore. We make explicit our conviction that the rule of the greater working class and the realization of socialism/communism- itself classless, superdemocratic production for use economy- must be brought about by supermajoritarian class conscious mandate of the people- and, contrary to the claims of left “anarchists", necessarily entails supermajoritarian conquest of the capitalist state and expropriation of the existing means of production.
If we are describing the classless, economically democratic, production for use society we envision as “democratic socialism”, we are indeed throwing around pleonasm, indeed dealing in redundancy. If we are using “democratic socialism” as a name for a body of thought and movement that posits socialism can only be realized by a class conscious revolutionary consensus of the masses, by democratic means, by a mandate of the people, and such a mandate’s capture of the state, we are not. As we know, socialism, socialist society, is necessarily more democratic than anything which has proceeded it. But we must do everything we can to advertise and emphasize our commitment to building democratic production for use economy by democratic means, by a road of supermajoritarianism and ever increasing democracy, with class conscious mandate of the people.
And in doing so, so long as we are forthright about our differences with them, we are not failing to distinguish ourselves from the faux “democratic socialists”, the welfare capitalists who have appropriated democratic socialism’s name, either. Nor are we playing the game of pacifist “reformism". Let us wrest democratic socialism’s name from the welfare capitalists and that have commandeered it. To do so would not be to sink into cowardice or play a game of “entryism". To do this would be to challenge their misappropriation of democratic socialism’s name and make a stand against welfare capitalism, address popular misconceptions about and accurately define socialism, and explicitly state our revolutionary strategy and ethics.
Let us wear raise this name for our movement up with our red banner. Let us be, as well as self-professed Marxists, communists, and socialists, democratic socialists.
-Strom McCallum
